KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange on Thursday witnessed a mixed trend and after moving both ways, closed on slightly positive note.

The benchmark KSE-100 Index hit 75,300.03 points intraday high and 74,585.35 points intraday low before closing at 74,878.12 points, up 41.82 points or 0.06 percent.

The daily trading volumes on ready counter slightly increased to 410.575 million shares as compared to 408.073 million shares traded on Wednesday however, the daily traded value on the ready counter declined to Rs 14.922 billion against previous session’s Rs 16.500 billion.

BRIndex100 lost 10.74 points or 0.14 percent to close at 7,834.89 points with total daily turnover of 330.184 million shares.

BRIndex30 gained 74.25 points or 0.29 percent to close at 25,330.20 points with total daily trading volumes of 219.693 million shares.

Foreign investors remained net buyers of shares worth $802,577. The market capitalization declined by Rs 17 billion to Rs 10.066 trillion. Out of total 413 active scrips, 196 closed in negative and 161 in positive while the value of 56 stocks remained unchanged.

Fauji Cement was the volume leader with 42.521 million shares and increased by Rs 1.20 to close at Rs 22.91 followed by Dewan Cement that gained Rs 0.93 to close at Rs 11.06 with 26.322 million shares. Dewan Motors surged by Rs 3.31 to close at Rs 44.73 with 25.937 million shares.

Service Industries and JDW Sugar Mills were the top gainers increasing by Rs 57.78 and Rs 37.52 respectively to close at Rs 976.41 and Rs 506.52 while Ismail Industries and Mari Petroleum Company were the top losers declining by Rs 127.37 and Rs 48.40 respectively to close at Rs 1,535.38 and Rs 2,754.44.

An analyst at Topline Securities said Pakistan equities had a mixed day where bullish and bearish forces fought whole day to grab the rein of market momentum and eventually bulls had the day on their name as the KSE-100 index settled the day at 74,878 level (up 42 points or 0.06 percent).

The day started on a positive note initially. However, investors chose to do some profit taking which compelled the benchmark index to go into negative territory where the benchmark index made an intraday low at 74,585 (down 251 points). Nonetheless, value hunters rescued the market at day’s low which ultimately led the index to have a positive closing.

During the day, E&P, Bank and Fertilizer sector’s stocks contributed negatively as MARI, MCB, ENGRO, FFC and PSEL lost 37 points. On the other hand, some stocks like MTL, SRVI and PPL experienced some buying interest, resulting in a combined positive contribution of plus 39 points.

BR Automobile Assembler Index increased by 283.7 points or 1.73 percent to close at 16,693.80 points with total turnover of 29.224 million shares.

BR Cement Index surged by 169.22 points or 2.29 percent to close at 7,551.95 points with 91.554 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index decreased by 68.94 points or 0.34 percent to close at 20,170.15 points with 21.495 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index gained 65.43 points or 0.37 percent to close at 17,653.16 points with 27.617 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index lost 25.2 points or 0.38 percent to close at 6,628.66 points with 23.342 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 3,956.31 points, down 14.52 points or 0.37 percent with 67.303 million shares.

Mohammed Waqar Iqbal at JS Global Capital said the market opened on a negative note due to mutual fund redemptions, which put some pressure.

Traded volume stood at 411 million shares with FCCL (up 5.5 percent), DCL (up 9.2 percent), DFML (up 8.0 percent), WTL (zero percent) and CSIL (up 7.6 percent) as volume leaders.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024